The flaw in you correspondent’s thinking is when he says “I don’tthink the state has (or should have) the right to kill those whoare not a threat. And an incarcerated person is no longer athreat.” A visit to the Big House might persuade himdifferently. Are the lives of prison guards or check kiters lessvaluable in his world view?

In any event, the case against incarceration was demonstrated byRuben “Hurricane” Carter. A jury found him guilty of multiplemurder. Bob Dylan wrote a song about him so Carter got anothertrial and a second jury found him guilty of multiple murder.Then some left wing judicial activists, inspired by Bob Dylan’ssong gamed the legal system to get Carter released.

The moral of the story is that in a democracy such as ours, youcannot count on maintaining political will to do the right thingover the long term so you have to do what you can in the shortterm. In other words, if Ruben Carter had been executed, leftwing activists could not have gotten him free to roam the streetstoday. Or as Side Show Bob said to Bart Simpson, “You can’t keepa Democrat out of the White House forever.”